


fate worse than death

by liberosis32



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, COVID-19, Coronavirus, Domesticity, Eventual Smut, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Roommates, and they were quarantined!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:08:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24267187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liberosis32/pseuds/liberosis32
Summary: "Tooru knew he could be a lot to handle at the best of times. And Iwaizumi was always solid, always dependable, always there.But Tooru could only do so much homework. He could only drink so much coffee, and could only watch so much TV. He could see the inevitable truth of it already—he was going to be a mess by the end of this.It wasn’t anything he wanted Iwaizumi to see."***Oikawa and Iwaizumi's first year at university is interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Quarantined in their apartment, old insecurities and hidden feelings come to a head.ORMy attempt to survive self-isolation by drowning in iwaoi feels :b(Tags will be added as necessary and applicable).
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 19
Kudos: 60





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I'm hopping on the bandwagon of quarantine-coping fics! Tags will be added to as necessary. I'm optimistic about regular updates, but I will admit this is my first attempt at posting a multi-chapter. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and stay safe out there, folks!

Tooru read the notice posted on the gym door a second time, then a third, his stomach sinking. “Volleyball’s… cancelled?” 

Iwaizumi, grumpier than normal, nudged past him to read the notice for himself. Tooru stepped out of the way in a daze. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. 

“Just because the gym is shut down, doesn’t necessarily mean volleyball’s cancelled,” Iwaizumi said after a long moment. 

Tooru wanted to tease him with something like, _Aw, Iwa-chan’s reading comprehension has gotten worse since high school. Too many serves to the head?_

But he wasn’t in the mood. They both knew what the sign meant. 

“I’ll check my email,” said Tooru, taking out his phone, desperate to cling to denial a few moments longer. “Maybe you’re right, maybe coach is having us practice someplace else.” 

Iwaizumi grunted in response, but he took out his phone, too.

As Tooru swiped his thumb down the inbox screen, all he saw was an unending list of notices related to COVID-19. Professors checking in and sending adjusted syllabi. Business spam detailing the ways they were supposedly planning to make things safe for patrons. Nothing official from their coach. 

Tooru slid his phone back into his pocket and looked out across the campus green. Students were lugging their belongings out of dorms, into the backseats of awaiting vans driven by overwhelmed parents. On their way to the gym, they had passed more than a few people crying. Everyone wore masks or scarves over their face, and instead of students discussing exciting spring break plans, all conversation had shifted to center around the pandemic. 

Iwaizumi sighed beside him, and put his own phone away. He appeared oddly lost, like he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. The look didn’t suit him.

“Well,” Tooru said, forcing an upbeat note into his voice. There was no changing the situation, and one of them had to take control. The best thing to do was treat it like a game—read your opponent, and adapt your strategy. “I suppose we could both use a recovery day. If nothing else, we can do stretches at the apartment.” 

Iwaizumi gave him a skeptical look, but didn’t comment further. Silently, they left together for home.

***

“Oikawa,” said Iwaizumi later that night, once they’d made it back, and then left again to raid what was left of the canned food at the local grocery, before finally settling into the apartment for good. “What’s your plan?”

Tooru had positioned himself on the sofa, and was staring down at the random assortment of puzzles they’d picked up from the store’s game section in a panic. As if either of them had the patience for something like that—an image came to him of Iwa-chan getting frustrated at the tediousness of the whole thing and flipping the table.

“Plan?” He asked.

Iwaizumi shut the freezer, where he’d just finished putting away the last of the frozen goods they’d managed to sweep up. “Are you going back to Miyagi or what?”

Tooru hadn’t really thought about it yet. They had an apartment together off campus, so they didn’t technically _have_ to leave Tokyo and go back to their parents. Not like most of their classmates, who had just been unceremoniously kicked out of the dorms with little more than 24-hours of notice.

On the one hand, if they had to be quarantined for very long, it made sense to shift base to someplace with a backyard. They would have an easier time practicing on their own, and their parents’ houses were only a street away from one another.

On the other hand… they’d only been official roommates for one semester, and Tooru had been looking forward to living with Iwaizumi since they were in elementary school. Back then it had seemed an inevitability, but as they’d approached the end of high school, a lot of private angsting had been done over the possibility of the two of them ending up at different universities, or worse yet, different cities.

Was it terrible of him, not wanting to give this living situation up just yet?

“I think we should stay put,” said Tooru. To make his point even further, he picked up the puzzle on the top of the stack and began tearing open the plastic.

“Why the hell are you assuming I’ll automatically do the same thing as you?” Iwaizumi said, but he didn’t actually sound pissed off. He was too occupied prepping two of their newly acquired frozen dinners for the microwave.

Tooru threw his most winning smile over his shoulder. “There’s no shame in it, Iwa-chan, I know you can’t bear to be apart from me.”

He slid open the lid and dumped 1,000 pieces of small cutout shapes onto the coffee table. A few bounced off and skittered under the couch.

Iwaizumi sighed, and after he got the first frozen dinner going, he came over and began picking up the bits of puzzle that had scattered onto the ground. “By the time this is over, I’ll be surprised if I can stomach being in the same room with you at all.”

“ _Rude_ , Iwa-chan! I’m a delight and you know it,” said Tooru, moving his feet out of the way so Iwaizumi could dig the wayward puzzle pieces out from beneath the couch. 

Once their dinners were done, without really discussing it, they ignored the puzzle and pulled up the sci-fi anthology show they’d been trekking through over the past month. Shoulders pressed together in the dark, they ate scalding, over-seasoned noodles, watched special agents kill aliens, and clung to the one bit of normalcy left in their routine.

“I’ll stay,” Iwaizumi said, later.

Tooru blinked his eyes open. When had he closed them? The television was still blaring, but he got the sense he’d been nodding off for a while, his head nestled against Iwaizumi’s shoulder.

They often wound up like this on nights they stayed in.

“Hmm?” He asked, closing his eyes again and pretending he was still mostly asleep. If he let himself fully wake, Iwaizumi would clear his throat and shove him off, and that wouldn’t do—not when Iwa-chan was such a warm, solid presence beside him.

“I’ll stay here with you until all this is over.”

There was a certain reluctance in Iwaizumi’s tone that did force Tooru to wake the rest of the way up and pay closer attention. He pulled his head from Iwaizumi’s shoulder and blinked the sleep from his eyes. “Did you not want to?”

Iwaizumi’s face tightened at the question, and Tooru suddenly regretted his word choice. It would have been so much better to say something along the lines of, _Do you think staying in Tokyo is a bad idea?_

Tooru hated sounding needy.

“I mean, I totally get that we don’t have a lot of space here,” Tooru said hurriedly. “If we’re here for a few weeks, and can’t really go anywhere, I can totally understand that it might be better to go back to our parent’s places, like you said before—”

“I never said I thought that would be better.”

“You—oh.” Tooru bristled a little, more at himself than Iwaizumi. “Well, what do you think _is_ the smart thing to do?”

Iwaizumi got to his feet, not meeting Tooru’s eyes. “Like I said. I’m going to stay here with you.”

“But I mean.” Tooru swallowed. “Are you sure—?”

“Do _you_ not want me to?”

“Of course, I do.”

“So that’s it, then.” Iwaizumi began picking up the remnants of their dinner. Tooru stayed on the couch, feeling oddly small beneath the blanket Iwaizumi must have pulled over him at some point. After a minute, Iwaizumi said, “You were already asleep, you should go on to bed. I’ll clean up here.”

“Okay,” said Tooru, but he didn’t actually follow directions. Instead, he folded the blanket and picked any loose crumbs off the couch while Iwaizumi threw away the trash.

***

The next morning, Tooru turned off his regular alarm, then his snooze alarm, then dragged himself out of bed, and was halfway through the shower before he remembered that classes were cancelled for the week.

“Fuck,” he said, even though just a few days ago he would have been thrilled at the reprieve.

He couldn’t go to the gym. Volleyball in the park was out of the question, what with social distancing a concern. It was pointless and dangerous to purposefully seek out any of their other friends.

What was he supposed to do with all this time?

Tooru turned off the water and stood there, dripping and cold, for a long minute before finally getting his act together enough to towel off. He might as well just go back to bed, then.

Except when he went out into the hall, towel around his waist, Iwaizumi was already set up at the breakfast table, coffee and books surrounding him. He glanced up when Tooru walked past, but quickly returned his eyes to his laptop. “Get dressed. We’re studying.”

“Studying? Classes are cancelled.”

“For this week, then they’re moving everything to Zoom. Read your emails, dumbass.”

Tooru felt a swell of affection at the jibing. He didn’t _want_ to study, but bantering with Iwaizumi was much more entertaining that just going back to sleep. “Why would I, when Iwa-chan will just tell me anything important?”

“I’m not your secretary.”

“Iwa-chan’s so dependable!”

Iwaizumi jerked his chin towards the second steaming mug of coffee on the table. Both were technically Iwaizumi’s mugs, but since the currently free one was shaped like a volleyball, Tooru usually tried to swipe it first if he could. “That’s the only coffee I’m making you. The longer you stand there, the colder it gets.”

“Mean, Iwa-chan,” Tooru sniffed. “You know I would make you ten cups of fresh coffee. Twenty, even.”

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes, but it wasn’t lost on Tooru that he was trying to hide a smile. Tooru left it there and didn’t press further, instead choosing to actually cooperate and go get dressed, so he wasn’t freezing and dripping all over the common space.

When he returned, there was another pot already brewing in the kitchen.

Tooru smiled and almost commented on in, but when he looked over at the table, Iwaizumi was focused on his work, his brow pinched together in the hyper-focused way Tooru recognized from sets they’d played against particularly intense opponents. He glanced over at something on a notepad, then went back to typing away on his laptop, already in some kind of crazy study flow state. What time was it, like 8:30?

Iwaizumi had always been a little intense.

Tooru let himself stand there, feeling happy and fond, until Iwaizumi sensed him watching and looked up. “What?”

“Just thinking about how it’s no wonder you’re a spiker and not a setter.” Tooru shrugged. “That’s some truly poor finger dexterity—it’s honestly concerning how slowly you type. Maybe you should see a doctor.”

“You know, if you actually focus and get ahead on work now, you’ll have more time to train when the gym does open up again.”

Iwaizumi had a point. “I suppose there are worse things,” Tooru said with a sigh, and went about finding his backpack and digging out the books he would need to really get going.

He took the spot at the table across from Iwaizumi so they could both spread out their materials as needed. The coffee _was_ a little cold by the time Tooru actually got around to drinking it, but hell if he was going to admit that. He made himself swallow every last drop of the lukewarm bean juice before taking both of their mugs to the pot for refills.

Iwaizumi thanked him when he returned, but otherwise didn’t look up from his studies.

Tooru outlined one paper, then began editing another. They passed most of the day working across from each other, only stopping for food or bathroom breaks. It was insane how much Tooru was able to get done. Without class, or practice, or other social obligations, who knew how much faster homework would go?

To be honest, he relished the productivity. Tooru imagined he wouldn’t handle it well, sitting around without a clear task or objective to occupy his focus.

“Hey,” said Iwaizumi sometime later. Tooru looked up. Outside the window over the sink, the sky was bruise purple. “I’m wrapping up. You wanna go for a run?”

Tooru thought of all the safety warnings the campus health department had been emailing them. Contrary to what he’d told Iwaizumi earlier, he _did_ check his email. “Is it safe? Going out like that?”

“I mean, people still have to exercise, and it’s dark enough now not a lot of people would be out even during normal times. If we stick to campus and steer clear of anyone else with the same idea, we should be fine.”

Tooru still felt a little uneasy, but as he opened his mouth to voice his concerns, it was like the apartment suddenly shrunk in size around him. “I suppose if we’re careful,” he said slowly. He stood up and stretched.

After changing into athletic gear and chugging some water in the kitchen, Tooru and Iwaizumi headed out.

They didn’t pass anyone on the stairs. They didn’t pass anyone on the street. They didn’t pass anyone on the quad.

“It feels like we’re in an apocalypse movie,” Tooru said, when they paused to catch their breath after meeting their mileage goal. “Like we’re the last two people on earth.”

Iwaizumi straightened up from where he’d bent to re-tie his shoe. “Don’t be dramatic. Even if people weren’t quarantining, like I said, it’s pretty late.”

Tooru looked up at the dormitory they’d stopped outside. They’d been here a handful of times, most of them during welcome week, to attend parties and various get-togethers. Usually, the windows were bright with twinkle lights and lava lamps.

Tonight, everything inside was dark.

“Yeah…” he said.

Iwaizumi stepped between Tooru and the building, intentionally blocking his view. “Hey. I’m serious. It’s not going to help to get all worked up.”

“I’m not getting worked up.”

“You sure about that?”

Tooru huffed and made himself roll his eyes. Oddly enough, his throat did feel a little tight. It’s from the jogging, he told himself, trying not to think of their friends and teammates, scattered to God-knows-where.

“Hey! You kids! You there!”

Tooru and Iwaizumi both turned towards the sound of the voice. A campus security guard was coming around the side of the building, holding a baton and a hefty flashlight. “Sir?” Iwaizumi asked.

“What do you think you’re doing?” As the security guard got closer, it was easier to see his face was scrunched up with anger. “Going out like this, are you crazy? Are you trying to put other people’s lives in danger?”

“No,” said Tooru, stunned at this guy’s intensity. “We were just—”

“ _’Oh, we were just, we were just…’_ ” The security guard mimicked. “Bullshit. Campus is closed. The both of you need to go home.”

Anger swelled inside Tooru. Who was this guy, who thought he could speak to them like this? Security guard or not, there was a polite way to do things, and this was not it. He took a step forward—

—and Iwaizumi held him back. “We’re going. Sorry for the trouble.”

“You should be.” The security guard said, scowling. “You’re putting not just your own lives at risk, but those of others. You’re both selfish, that’s what you are.”

It seemed like he would’ve been content to keep berating them all night if Iwaizumi hadn’t gripped Tooru by the shoulders and forcibly turned him around to march him back the way they came.

***

Tooru shut the door of the apartment quietly behind them. He toed off his running shoes and hung up his jacket.

“I’m sorry,” Iwaizumi said, standing awkwardly to the side.

They’d walked home in almost complete silence. At first Tooru had been seething, furious at being treated with such disrespect for an honest mistake. They hadn’t known the green was entirely closed. He still wasn’t sure the green was entirely closed, and that the security guard hadn’t just been looking for a convenient target on which to unload his own stress about the pandemic.

The further away from campus they got, though, the more Tooru wondered if the security guard had been right. If they had been playing with fire. With their own lives, and those of others.

What did it mean, now, to be safe?

“It’s okay,” said Tooru, inflectionless. “We didn’t know. It seemed like a good idea.”

“Are you okay?”

Tooru put on a smile out of habit and turned to Iwaizumi. “I’m fine. It was just a grouchy old man with too much time on his hands. I’m fine.”

Even as the words left his mouth, he knew they weren’t convincing. He couldn’t stop thinking about the empty dorms. The locked-up gymnasium. The feeling of intense, total isolation, heightened further in places like the green that were usually swarming with students.

Who knew when this was going to end? When was the next time they’d be able to play volleyball? What was going to happen to his conditioning, if they truly couldn’t even leave the apartment? Oh, God, were they really going to be confined to this tiny space for the next month, if not longer?

“Hey, Oikawa— _Tooru_.” Iwaizumi was trying to get his attention, gripping both of his arms, but his obvious concern only dug up the worst fear of all.

Tooru knew he could be a lot to handle at the best of times. And Iwaizumi was always solid, always dependable, always _there_.

But Tooru could only do so much homework. He could only drink so much coffee, and could only watch so much TV. He could see the inevitable truth of it already—he was going to be a _mess_ by the end of this.

It wasn’t anything he wanted Iwaizumi to see.

Tooru took a deep breath, and this time, when he spoke, he managed not to sound like he was about to burst into hysterical tears “I really am fine. Just a little shaken. That security guard was a lot, you know?”

Iwaizumi didn’t look quite convinced.

Tooru laid a hand over his own heart and committed to the dramatics. “Gasp! Does Iwa-chan not trust me?”

Iwaizumi’s concerned expression pinched into its usual exasperation. “Whatever, Shittykawa. If you’re really fine, I’m taking the first shower.”

Typically, Tooru might’ve answered with something like, _Well, in that, case, I’m a nervous, devastated wreck! I can’t possibly go on without first dibs on the hot water_.

“That’s cool,” he said instead, stepping around Iwaizumi. “I’m actually pretty tired. Think I’ll just shower in the morning.”

He felt Iwaizumi’s eyes on him all the way back to his room.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much for my confidence over regular updates :b
> 
> For anyone subscribed, thanks for being patient. I hope you are all staying safe out there <3

“I’m sorry, Hajime, but I’m still not following your logic.” His mother’s voice was tense, bordering on shrill, over the phone.

Hajime continued pacing in a small circle around his bedroom. He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “I must not be explaining it well enough.”

“Or you could just be wrong altogether. It makes no sense for you or Tooru to stay in Tokyo. All of us want you boys _home_.”

“I understand that, but our lease isn’t up yet. No one’s trying to sublet anything in this area right now. Even if they were, how would we move everything out?”

“I’m not talking about moving you both out. Just come home for a few weeks, until things cool down. Things will be back to normal soon, but for now, I would feel much better if you were close by where I could keep an eye on you.” Almost pleading, she added, “I just want to know you’re safe.”

“I am safe, Mom,” said Hajime, feeling half guilty, and half like he could relate a little too strongly to what she was saying.

 _Are you my mom, Iwa-chan?_ Oikawa often asked. It was an obnoxious question, literally designed to get on Hajime’s nerves, but it wasn’t entirely off base.

Hajime wanted to stay in Tokyo, in the apartment he shared with Oikawa, where he could always know that his friend was okay. Where Hajime would always be there to _do_ something about it if he wasn’t.

Yes, they were next door neighbors in Miyagi, but that was _different_.

He felt a light tap on his shoulder, and turned around. Oikawa, freshly showered and dressed in a loose t-shirt and sweats, was holding his hand out for the phone. Hajime handed it over with a mix of resignation and relief.

Immediately, Oikawa’s previously grave expression turned bright and overly-cheerful as he took over the conversation with Hajime’s mom. “Iwaizumi-san! How are you? Yes, it has been awfully crazy lately, hasn’t it?” He paused to listen, and then laughed. “You don’t have to tell me about how stubborn he is. But listen, about the two of us coming back to Miyagi…”

Hajime watched for about two more seconds while Oikawa worked his witchcraft, then went to lay down on his bed and stare up at the ceiling.

There were water stains in the sheetrock. A long crack in the plaster stretching almost the full length of the bed, like the first outline of a young canyon. To his left, the clouded window didn’t open more than a few inches. There wasn’t even a decent view; it looked out onto the brick wall of the building opposite them.

Yet for the few months they’d been living here, what had started as a bland, grubby two-bedroom had slowly but surely morphed into something of importance.

Empty kitchen cabinets now brimmed with a truly atrocious assortment of mugs. Plants, sometimes thriving, sometimes on the verge of death (depending on whose week it was to water them) lined the living room window sills. They even received junk mail.

Yet the memory that stuck in Hajime’s brain was how, three months after moving in, he’d come back from an evening class to find an assortment of Godzilla posters nailed all over his bedroom. He dropped his backpack and gaped at the shoddy execution. There was no way they were going to get their security deposit back now.

“Shittykawa!” he called.

Of course, Oikawa took his time sauntering in from his own bedroom for the confrontation. “I really don’t see what the problem is, Iwa-chan. You have to add at least some personality to the space, or else people will think you’re some kind of serial killer.”

“I’ll kill _you_ , how about that?” Hajime tried to swipe at the back of Oikawa’s head, but he ducked out of the way at the last second, which lead to the two of them wrestling on the living room floor until Oikawa hit his bad knee on the corner of the coffee table.

They stopped immediately after that. Hajime made Oikawa sit down and elevate his leg, then brought him a bag of frozen peas.

It wasn’t until about later that evening, when they were curled up and half-asleep on the couch, watching the credits of yet another cheesy B-grade alien flick, that the subject of the posters came up again.

“It’s just that I’ve been settled in for ages,” Oikawa muttered. “Your room looks like you could pack everything up in five minutes, and be on the next train out.”

Hajime sighed, put-upon, at least outwardly. On the inside, a familiar warmth was unfurled in his chest. His words came out softer than he meant them to. “I wasn’t planning to take down the posters.”

Oikawa’s eyes had drifted closed. He didn’t open them, but a small, content smile spread across his face. “You won’t? Really?”

“They… don’t bother me as much as they could.” Hajime admitted.

When a still-smiling Oikawa worked an arm around his waist and tried to nuzzle against his neck, he turned his head away, the tips of his ears growing warm.

That little habit of theirs—over-affection as a joke—didn’t exactly bother him as much as it could, either.

“Okay,” said the Tooru of the present, hanging up the phone. He didn’t hesitate before crossing the room and flopping onto the bed beside Hajime. “Your mom is fine with us staying put.”

“Not that I don’t trust your ability to win over just about anyone, but I wouldn’t exactly say she’s ‘fine’ with it.”

Oikawa shrugged. Hajime didn’t see it, but he felt the motion beside him. He fought the urge to scoot away and put more distance between them. “Maybe you’re right, fine with it isn’t’ exactly the right word. But she trusts us enough to let us do what we think is best.”

Hajime wondered, again, whether it was ‘best’ to stay put in Tokyo, or if he was just giving into his lesser instincts.

“Anyway!” Oikawa said brightly, sitting up suddenly. “You promised we would learn acro-yoga today. Get up, Iwa-chan!”

Oikawa patted his thigh a little too hard. Hajime groaned. He _had_ promised that.

The day after they’d come back from their ill-fated run, Hajime and Oikawa had fallen into a bit of an absurd routine. They’d get up early and study in the morning. They’d make food and coffee—or, Hajime made food and coffee, and Oikawa found a way to tease him about it—then they’d spend the afternoon learning something new on YouTube. So far, they’d made bread from scratch, learned to knit (resulting in two very sad-looking halfway done yarn beanies), and ordered supplies to grow a basil garden.

It felt kind of silly and pointless a lot of the time, but because it was Oikawa, who somehow managed to be enthusiastic and scarily competitive about everything, Hajime found he didn’t really mind the ways they’d chosen to try and stay sane through all the chaos.

Acro-yoga, though… maybe Hajime should have been a little wiser about which activities he volunteered to subject himself to.

“You push the table out of the way, and I’ll pull up the tutorial!” Oikawa announced brightly when Hajime reluctantly followed him into the common space.

“Why am I the one doing all the heavy-lifting?” asked Hajime, but he was already on his way to move the table. He had to be careful not to spill puzzle pieces everywhere; they hadn’t made much progress on that particular project, and he wasn’t entirely sure why they hadn’t just re-boxed the whole thing already.

“You have to maintain your physique, if you want to go right back to practice as usual when things open back up again,” said Oikawa, fiddling with the TV remote. “Really, I’m doing you a favor.”

Hajime finally got the table pushed far enough away that there would be enough space on the rug for both of them to do this stupid yoga thing. He thought of the other ‘favors’ Oikawa had done for him, namely the whole thing with the posters, and decided it was best to just put it out of his mind.

This was what he’d wanted, after all. What he’d chosen. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world to just let Oikawa be Oikawa.

Oddly, however, at his lack of response, Oikawa turned to look at him, brow pinched in confusion. “Is something wrong?”

Only then did it occur to Hajime that he might have been staring, just a little. It was becoming a bad habit; being confined to the same space together made it hard _not_ to dwell on the way Oikawa’s eyes brightened when he was really focused, or the way his hands shook slightly when he was abuzz with just a little too much caffeine.

Now, as Oikawa stood in the center of the common space, damp-haired and looking relatively relaxed, considering their strange current circumstances, Hajime couldn’t help but feel hyper-aware of _every little thing_ about him.

He glared, hoping the ways his face was heating up wasn’t noticeable. “You’re going to break the remote if you keep pushing multiple buttons at the same time.”

Oikawa huffed, and turned his nose up in the air. “You’re just jealous because I’ve got the magic touch.”

Unfortunately, that much was true when it came to the TV. Oikawa knew all the secret pathways of Fire Sticks and HDMI hookups, which streaming service connected to what, and whose parents’ Hulu they were logged into on what device.

Hajime didn’t make any further comments, instead coming around to look over Oikawa’s shoulder at the TV. His mouth went dry at the YouTube channel that had been pulled up. For whatever reason, when Oikawa had said ‘acro-yoga,’ yesterday, he hadn’t really realized that had meant partnered yoga.

“We can’t do this,” Hajime heard himself say.

Oikawa looked over his shoulder as he clicked through the video options. “What are you talking about? Of course we can. It’s no different than partnered stretches at practice.”

“We… well, we don’t have the space for it.” Hajime was glad his brain had decided to toss up a slightly believable excuse. “What happens when we screw up and fall over and you get hurt?”

“I won’t get hurt.” Oikawa brushed past Hajime and moved to sit on the floor, where he immediately folded forward to touch his toes, the flexible bastard.

“You’re awfully confident in yourself.”

“Yes, but mostly I’m confident in you.” Oikawa lifted his chin so that he was looking up at Hajime, eyes bright with something both teasing and sincere. “You aren’t going to let me fall.”

Hajime felt his face getting hot again. He hated this. He hated it with a fiery passion. But who did he really have to blame, other than himself?

Hajime plopped down onto the floor beside Oikawa. “Play the stupid video,” he grumbled.

Oikawa beamed and pressed the button. A tiny woman with a tight ponytail and tighter yoga pants introduced herself and her partner—a man who had to be at least six feet tall, with crazy toned shoulders—in a low, soothing voice.

Things progressed from there. As it turned out, Oikawa hadn’t been lying when he said this wouldn’t be that different from partnered stretching at practice. They were still working as a team, and the physicality of the whole thing wasn’t abnormal for them.

The main difference was that at practice, they did this in a public gymnasium, surrounded by their friends and teammates, who were all doing the same thing.

Here, with just the two of them, this felt… well. Intimate.

“You’re really tense,” Oikawa commented partway into the video, pressing down on Hajime’s back in an attempt to get him to lean further forward. “We should make this a regular thing, or else you _are_ going to be too stiff when we go back to practice.”

Hajime squeezed his eyes shut, and tried to make the muscles in his lower back relax. If anything, they just tensed up further. “It’s because you’ve been grating on my patience.”

Oikawa _tsked_ from behind him, and eased up just a little bit. “Talking’s not going to help. Exhale, then try again.”

Hajime wanted to come back with something like, _And when did you become a certified yoga instructor?_ But upon noticing that the woman directing the class on the YouTube video had moved onto a different position entirely, he swallowed his words. He breathed out, slowly, like Oikawa said.

“There,” said Oikawa, voice low. “I’m going to press down again, okay?”

Hajime didn’t answer vocally. He just did his best to nod, and to allow himself to let go and be pressed forward by Oikawa’s weight. The movement hurt, but not in a bad way. The strain of it was almost a welcome reminder of the capabilities of his own body; a pleasurable burning that left him wanting to sink even further into the sensation.

Then something pulled wrong, and Hajime hissed in through his teeth.

Oikawa eased back again. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” said Hajime, not moving. “Yeah.”

“Are you sure…?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Let’s… look, I think we got behind on the video. Let’s back it up and switch places, okay?”

Oikawa hesitated, but then said, a bit overly bright, “Yeah! Okay, let’s do that.”

They moved through the rest of the video in relative silence. The mood between them had shifted into something more focused, more serious. Hajime told himself it was because they actually had gotten into the routine, and it _did_ feel good to stretch after so many days away from practice.

When it was all over, though, and the instructor on the video was having them fall back into that one pose where you basically laid like a corpse and stared up at the ceiling, Oikawa shifted over closer so that their arms were pressed together.

Hajime’s breath caught. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t like Oikawa didn’t drape himself all over Hajime at the best of times, in public, in private, everywhere.

But Hajime couldn’t stop the lump rising in his throat. He tried twice to swallow it down before admitting to the quiet of their apartment, “I’m glad we’re both staying.”

It felt silly to say; overdramatic. The world was in chaos right now, but _they_ were safe. There were worse things, after all, than being secluded to a small space with your best friend, even if some secret, not-so-friendly feelings were lurking around in sudden silences and fresh cups of coffee and electric, barely-noticeable brushes of skin on skin.

Oikawa hesitated, stiffening slightly, before twining their hands together and squeezing. Hajime expected him to say something. A lilting, teasing comment, to brush away the weight of the moment; the heavy, liminal feeling of their overall situation.

But he was quiet.

They laid there, side by side, staring up at the ceiling until the TV turned off on its own, and Hajime pulled himself up to make them both dinner.

**Author's Note:**

> If you feel so inclined, kudos and/or comments go deeply appreciated! Thank you for reading either way <3


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